ce without torture, but Signy
besought him that they might breathe the earthly air a day or two
before their death, and he listened to her, for he saw how he might
thus give them greater pain. He bade his men lead them to a glade in
the forest and fetter them to the mightiest tree that grew there. So
the ten Volsungs were fettered with iron to a great oak, and on the
morrow Siggeir's woodmen told him sweet tidings, for beasts of the
wood had devoured two and left their bones in the fetters. So it
befell every night till the woodmen brought word that nothing
remained of the king's foemen save their bones in the fetters that
had bound them.

Now a watch had been set on Signy lest she should send help to her
brethren, but henceforth no man hindered her from going out to the
wood. So that night she came to the glade in the forest, and saw in
the midst of it a mighty man who was toiling to dig a grave in the
greensward.

And behold, it was Sigmund the Volsung: but she cried and had no fear:

"If thou art living, Sigmund, what day's work dost thou here
In the midnight and the forest? but if thou art nought but a ghost
Then where are those Volsung brethren, of whom thou wert best and most?"

Then he turned about unto her, and his raiment was fouled and torn,
And his eyen were great and hollow, as a famished man forlorn;

But he cried: "Hail, Sister Signy! I looked for thee before,
Though what should a woman compass, she one alone and no more,
When all we shielded Volsungs did nought in Siggeir's land?
O yea, I am living indeed, and this labour of mine hand
Is to bury the bones of the Volsungs; and lo, it is well-nigh done.
So draw near, Volsung's daughter, and pile we many a stone
Where lie the grey wolf's gleanings of what was once so good."

So she set her hand to the labour, and they toiled, they twain in the wood,
And when the work was over, dead night was beginning to fall:
Then spake the white-hand Signy: "Now shall thou tell the tale
Of the death of the Volsung brethren ere the wood thy wrath shall hide,
Ere I wend me back sick-hearted in the dwelling of kings to abide."

Then said Sigmund:

"We lay fettered to the tree and at midnight there came from the
thicket two mighty wood-wolves, and falling on my brethren Gylfi and
Geirmund, they devoured them in their bonds, and turned again to the
forest. Night after night, my sister, this befell, till I was left
alone with our bro